While walking through Amsterdam's
Schiphol Airport in November 2000, I stopped in one of the
duty-free shops and saw this radio.

The Philips AE1000 is an MW/FM receiver which the manufacturer
describes as a "Free-Powered Radio." At first glance, it would
seem similar to the Baygen Freeplay radios from South
Africa, but closer inspection reveals something else.

Whereas the Baygen units use a wind-up mechanism that causes
a mainspring to turn a built-in generator (thus offering truly
battery-free operation), the AE1000 uses two AAA NiMH rechargeable
cells built into the unit, and the wind-up mechanism
operates a charging system which refreshes the charge in the
cells. The net result of both is, of course, radios that
do not need regular batteries, but the fact is that at some
point the rechargeables in the Philips will burn out and they will
have to be replaced. Whether or not this is an issue to
the average consumer is really up to the specific user.

The AE1000 is about the size of a typical pocket transistor radio.
Its case is described by Philips as having a "rugged design,"
and one could say that it certainly looks rugged but
I would be hesitant to drop it from even table-height. What
might mitigate the impact would be the rubberized side panels
(the black portions shown in the photo), but still and all,
polystyrene is polystyrene...

The most obvious feature of the radio is the fold-out crank
in the center on the front of the unit. The user is to turn
this crank at an appropriate speed (you know you are at the
right speed when a "Charging" LED on the top of the unit lights)
for 1 minute for each 30 minutes of playing time. My unit
was fully charged; after playing the radio for about 20 minutes
right out of the box I did the one-minute drill and the
radio ran for over 3 hours of continuous use.
Philips says that you can charge the batteries up to one hour
at time, translating to 15 hours of continuous use. I could
not imagine turning the crank for sixty minutes, but I suppose
if you're in the woods and bored it would be something to do.

The chrome ring at the hub of the crank also servers as
a power selector switch.
The user can select as a power source
the built in rechargeables or two AA batteries which can
be installed in a conventional battery door at the back of the unit.

The 2-inch speaker provides typical transistor-radio audio
quality.

Above the crank is a dial light button, which is really
of dubious value. The actual light sources (two LEDs)
are so far from the dial scale that they serve no purpose
other than to give the face plate of the unit a cool glow.

The dial scale runs from 88 to 108 MHz FM and 530 to 1600 kHz
MW. The highest station I can receive on this unit is a local
TIS (Traveler's Information Service) station at 1610 kHz.
Philips sold a version in North America called the
AE1000-17 which tunes the Medium Wave band from 530 to 1710 kHz.
Toys 'R' Us retail stores carried this version of the radio in their electronics
department.

As one would expect, the calibration on the dial is not
precise. WBBM (780 kHz) comes in at around 800 on the scale.

The left side of the cabinet has the power/volume control
thumbwheel. The right side has the FM/AM band switch
(surprisingly marked as such, since the dial scale says "FM/MW")
and the tuning control. On top of the radio we have a
"Tuning" LED which lights when a station is received
and next to it, the aforementioned "Charging" LED.
There is also a non-pivoting telescoping antenna for FM reception.

Interestingly, there is no headphone/earphone jack anywhere
on the unit.

From a performance standpoint, this radio is a bit disappointing.
It receives most of my local AM and FM stations without too much
trouble, but there is a real problem with "ghosts" and splattering
across both bands. I live near the transmitters for
both WBBM (780 kHz) and WGN (720 kHz), and they appear all
across the dial on this radio. On the FM side, local
stations WKIE (92.7 MHz) and WYLL (106.7 MHz) appear in several spots on the FM
band. None of the other radios in my collection suffer from this
problem this badly.

In all, this is a neat little radio with a very interesting
concept. The AE1000 makes for a nice conversation piece, but
for serious listening it would make more sense to use a
different unit. I paid NLG 67.50 (about € 30 or US$ 26)
at the duty-free shop. Over the years I've seen other versions of this
radio sold under other names in places such as Walgreen's as recently as 2010.